BANCROFT 
LIBRARY 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


LnjTjrnjTnjTJinjrrinjTJTrmnjTrm^^ 


No.   4. 


Mormonism  Exposed. 


THE  OTHER  SIDE. 


A  CLERGYMAN'S  VIEW  OF  THE  CASE, 


REV.  JOHN    C.    K1IN1BALL, 


Of  Hartford,    Conn. 


Copied    frorn   "Tine   Index,"    Boston, 


1888. 


•  mjir 


.J 

UTJTnjrriJ\mmnjTJTJTJTJTJu^^ 


No. 


Mormonism  Exposed. 


SIDE. 


A  CLERGYMAN'S  VIEW  OF  THE  CASE 


BY 


REV.  JOHN    C. 

Of  Hartford,   Conn 


Copied   from  "Tin©   Index,"   Boston,   Mass. 


1888. 


K5 


IT  is  a  great  satisfaction  to  find  The  Index,  at  this  test 
point  of  the  Mormon  question,  acting  in  complete  harmony 
with  its  professions  as  the  organ  of  free  thought  by  giving  to 
each  side  of  it  a  fair  and  equal  hearing.  A  few  years  ago,  it 
was  almost  impossible  to  get  a  word  into  an  eastern  journal 
aiming  to  solve  it  on  any  broad  and  generous  principles;  even 
our  well-known  Unitarian  paper,  pre-eminent  for  its  general 
fairness,  refusing,  after  printing  columns  against  the  Mormons, 
to  give  on  the  other  side  the  testimony  of  the  United  States 
census,  and  of  such  men  as  Bishop  Tuttle,  Chief  Justice 
White,  and  tfye  Hon.  Hugh  McCullough,  simply  correct- 
ing its  own  mistakes.  It  is  not  by  any  means  the  greatest 
question  before  the  public,  but  it  is  one  which  touches  some 
points  of  religious  freedom  and  of  its  relation  to  moral  judg- 
ments more  deeply  than  any  other.  And  it  is  one  which,  not 
only  on  its  own  account,  but  in  the  interest  of  all  religion, 
needs  full  and  frank  discussion. 

The  first  step  in  this,  as  in  all  such  questions,  is  to  do 
justice  to  the  Mormons  themselves,  recognize  all  that  is  worthy 
and  good  among  them,  and  then,  from  the  vantage-ground  of 
this  justice,  assail  what  is  wrong  and  bad.  Mr.  Potter  speaks 
of  the  difficulty  of  getting  at  the  exact  facts  with  regard  to 
their  condition,  such  contradictory  stories  are  told  about  them, 
and  ascribes  the  good  said  of  them  to  the  circumstance  that 
visitors  in  Utah  for  a  short  time  see  only  the  surface  of  things, 
and  are  so  dazed  with  its  material  prosperity  as  to  make  their 
testimony  of  but  little  worth.  This  may  be  true  in  some 
cases;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the 
bad  which  is  told  of  them  is  quite  as  likely  to  rise  from  the 


prejudice,  narrowness,  and  conflicting  interests  of  those  who 
are  at  their  very  doors.  Nearness  of  residence,  where  these 
qualities  exist,  is  very  far  from  increasing  the  value  of  a  per- 
son's testimony.  Who  has  implicit  confidence  in  a  Califor- 
nian's  denunciation  of  the  Chinese,  or  in  a  western  squatter's 
diatribe  against  the  Indians,  or  in  a  Protestant  theologian's 
strictures  on  Roman  Catholicism?  So  with  the  criticisms  of 
Utah  Gentiles  on  their  Mormon  neighbors.  The  religious 
prejudice  against  them  is  immense — a  prejudice  which  is 
aggravated  still  more  by  the  sight  of  their  material  prosperity, 
and  also,  it  must  be  confessed,  by  their  aristocratic  bearing 
and  their  social  exclusiveness.  And  it  is  wonderful  how  this 
prejudice  blinds  the  eyes  of  otherwise  sensible  people  to  some 
of  the  most  common  things  about  them,  one  writer  from  Salt 
Lake  City  to  the  Christian  Register,  betraying  an  ignorance  of 
their  family  customs  that  every  most  casual  visitor  is  sure  to 
see,  another  testifying  to  a  prevalence  of  ignorance  and 
drunkenness  among  their  young,  that  the  slightest  examina- 
tion of  local  records  would  at  once  have  disproved,  and 
another  being  apparently  unacquainted  with  the  fact  of  a 
trial  which  must  have  taken  place  under  her  very  ears. 

Then,  where  this  prejudice  does  not  exist  among  the 
observers  themselves,  the  fear  of  it  in  others  is  often  a  cause 
of  the  difficulty  there  is  in  getting  at  the  exact  facts. 
Shortly  after  my  own  visit  to  Salt  Lake  City,  I  fell  in  with  a 
Baptist  minister  who  had  spent  several  months  there  for  the 
benefit  of  his  health.  We  naturally  compared  notes  about 
•our  experiences;  and  he  told  me  of  the  dislike  and  miscon- 
ception, gathered  up  at  home,  with  which  he  had  gone  to  the 
place,  and  how,  little  by  little,  they  had  been  melted  away, 
and  his  dislike  turned  to  admiration.  I  asked  him  why,  for 
the  sake  of  justice,  he  did  not  publish  in  some  eastern  news- 
paper the  result  of  his  observations.  "Oh,"  he  exclaimed,  "it 
would  not  do.  I  should  only  ruin  my  own  reputation,  and 
nobody  would  believe  me.  I  should  either:  be  accused  of 


having  become  a  convert  to  polygamy  or  else  of  being  a  cred- 
ulous fool  whose  eyes  a  little  Mormon  flattery  had  blinded  to 
its  enormities."  The  editor  of  a  popular  magazine,  returning 
to  its  writer  an  article  on  Utah  that,  from  the  literary  stand- 
point, gave  -a  genial  description  of  Mormon  social  life,  said, 
"I  have  no  doubt  that  what  you  say  is  all  true,  but  it  would 
ruin  us  to  publish  it."  And  two  ladies,  awhile  ago,  traveling 
all  the  way  from  Salt  Lake  City  to  attend  a  woman's  suffrage 
convention,  were  not  allowed  to  present  the  result  of  the 
suffrage  experiment  in  Utah,  because  their  recognition,  as  they 
were  told,  would  compromise  its  friends  too  much  here  at  the 
east. 

But  in  spite  of  all  these  difficulties,  there  are  Gentiles 
who  have  had  the  largeness  of  vision  to  look  at  Mormonism 
as  they  would  at  any  other  religion,  and  the  courage  to 
present  what  they  have  seen  fairly  to  the  public.  Some 
of  them  are  men  who  have  lived  in  Utah  for  years  in  daily 
contact  with  its  people^  so  as  to  know  for  certainty  whereof 
they  speak;  while  others,  though  visitors,  were  travelers  and 
public  men  of  that  world-wide  experience  which  precludes 
all  thought  of  their  having  been  dazzled  or  fooled  by  any 
flattery  or  outside  glitter.  And  as  helping  to  throw  reliable 
light  on  this  question  of  what  the  Mormons  really  are,  and  to 
sustain  what  Mr.  Curtis  and  others  of  us  less  known  have 
said  from  our  own  observations,  let  me  quote  briefly  the  testi- 
mony of  these  indisputable  authorities. 

Rev.  D.  S.  Tuttle,  bishop  of  the  Episcopal  church  in  the 
Utah  Diocese,  and  a  resident  for  some  twelve  years  in  Salt 
Lake  City,  a  man  whose  opportunity  and  capacity  for  fair 
judgment  no  one  can  question,  says  of  them  in  a  lecture 
delivered  in  New  York  and  published  in  the  Sun  of  November, 
1877:  "/  know  that  the  people  of  the  East  have  judged  them 
unjustly.  We  are  accustomed  to  look  on  them  as  either  a 
licentious,  arrogant,  or  rebellious  mob,  bent  only  on  defying 
the  United  States  government  and  as  deriding  the  faith  of 


6 

Christians.  This  is  not  so.  /  know  them  to  be  honest,  faithful, 
prayerful  workers" 

Hon.  Hugh  McCullough,  ex-Secretary  of  the  United 
States  Treasury,  writes  in  the  New  York  Tribune,  of  March 
29,  1877:  "The  people  of  the  United  States  are  under  obliga- 
tions to  the  Mormons.  One  can  hardly  repress  a  feeling  of 
admiration  for  their  courage,  patience  and  power  of  endur- 
ance. They  have  opened  and  improved  a  region  which,  but 
for  them,  would  have  been  neglected.  They  have  brought  to 
the  country  many  thousands  of  industrious,  peaceable  and 
skilful  people,  and  added  largely  to  its  wealth.  Good  judges 
and  honest  officials  should  be  sent  them;  and  in  other 
respects,  the  federal  government  should  let  them  severely 
alone.  Their  history  will  afford  abundant  materials  for  philo- 
sophical speculation,  but  there  is  no  danger  of  their  being  a 
political  or  social  disturbance." 

Bayard  Taylor  says:  "We  must  admit  that  Salt  Lake 
City  is  one  of  the  most  quiet,  orderly  and  moral  places  in  the 
world.  The  Mormons,  as  a  people,  are  the  most  temperate  of 
Americans.  They  are  chaste,  laborious  and  generally  cheer- 
ful." 

Dr.  Miller,  editor  of  the  Omaha  Herald,  says:  "To  the 
lasting  honor  of  the  Mormon  people  and  system,  for  twenty- 
five  years  such  machines  of  moral  infamy  as  whiskey 
shops,  harlotries,  faro  banks,  and  all  the  attendants  of  vice 
and  iniquity,  were  totally  unknown  in  Utah.  But  now  these 
hydra-headed  monsters  are  gaining  foothold  in  Salt  Lake 
City;  and  the  damning  fact  is  that  it  is  only  by  the  surrepti- 
tious evasion  and  overthrow  of  Mormon  authority  that  these 
and  kindred  curses  now  evade  it." 

Mrs.  Emily  Pitt  Stevens,  editor  of  the  Pioneer,  a  woman's 
journal,  says:  "In  Salt  Lake  City  there  is  less  rowdyism, 
drunkenness,  gambling,  idleness,  theft,  conspiracy  against  the 
peace  of  society,  and  crime  generally  than  in  any  other  city  of 
the  same  population  in  the  country,  if  not  on  the  globe." 


Elder  Miles  Grant,  the  well-known  Adventist  preacher, 
says:  "There  is  less  licentiousness  in  Salt  Lake  City  than  in 
any  other  of  the  same  size  in  the  United  States;  and  were  we 
to  bring  up  a  family  of  children  in  these  last  days  of  wicked- 
ness, we  should  have  less  fear  of  'their  moral  corruption  in 
that  city  than  in  any  other." 

General  Thomas  L.  Kane,  of  Pennsylvania,  after  four 
years'  experience  among  them,  says:  "I  have  not  heard  a 
single  charge  made  against  them  as  a  community — against 
their  habitual  purity  of  life,  their  willing  integrity,  their  tol- 
eration of  religious  differences,  their  regard  for  the  laws,  their 
devotion  to  the  constitutional  government  under  which  we 
live — that  I  do  not  from  my  own  observation  or  from  the  tes- 
timony of  others  know  to  be  false" 

R.  N.  Baskin,  Esq.,  United  States  prosecuting  attorney  in 
Utah,  and  a  strong  anti-Mormon,  testified  before  the  Commil/- 
tee  on  Territories  of  the  United  States  House  of  Representa- 
tives: "I  have  been  for  five  years  past  a  resident  of  Utah.  I 
must  do  the  Mormons  the  justice  to  say  that  the  question  of 
religion  does  not  enter  into  their  courts  in  ordinary  cases.  I 
have  never  detected  any  bias  on  the  part  of  jurors  there  in 
this  respect,  as  I  at  first  expected.  I  have  appeared  in  cases 
where  Mormons  and  Gentiles  were  opposing  parties,  and  saw, 
much  to  my  surprise,  the  jury  do  what  was  right" — a  sworn 
statement  of  a  United  States  officer,  which  may  well  offset  the 
assertion  of  a  recent  writer  in  a  religious  newspaper  that 
"nine-tenths  of  the  people  of  the  Territory  are  pledged  to 
defeat  the  ends  of  justice,"  yet  one  which  as  a  reply  that 
newspaper  refused  to  print. 

A  special  committee  of  the  Nevada  State  Senate,  appointed 
to  report  on  the  question  of  annexing  Utah  to  Nevada,  say: 
"Utah  is  without  a  territorial  or  county  debt.  The  traffic  in 
spirituous  liquors  is  under  complete  control.  Gambling  and 
houses  of  ill-fame  are  no^fcolerated.  Its  school  system  is 
unsurpassed  in  its  adaptation  to  the  wants  of  the  masses" — an 


8 

official  document  which  surely  is  of  more  weight  than  the 
assertion  of  Prof.  Harden,  in  the  Christian  Union,  "that  non- 
Mormon  teachers  are  excluded  from  their  system  of  schools, 
and  that  Mormon  doctrines  are  assiduously  taught." 

Chief  Justice  White,  of  the  United  States  Bench,  in 
charging  the  grand  jury,  at  Salt  Lake  Jpity,  Utah,  February, 
1876,  says:  "No  matter  how  much  I  differ  from  them  [the 
Mormons]  in  belief,  nor  how  widely  they  differ  from  the 
American  people  in  matters  of  religion,  yet  testing  them  and 
it  by  a  standard  which  the  world  recognizes  as  just,  they 
deserve  higher  consideration  than  has  ever  been  accorded  to 
them.  Industry,  frugality,  temperance,  honesty,  and,  in  every 
respect  but  one — the  legislation  against  polygamy — obedience 
to  law  are  with  them  the  common  practices  of  life.  This 
land  they  have  redeemed  from  sterility  and  made  the  habita- 
tion of  a  numerous  people,  where  a  beggar  is  never  seen  and 
where  almshouses  are  neither  needed  nor  known." 

With  regard  to  the  complicity  of  the  Mormons  in  the 
Mountain  Meadows  massacre,  a  crime  with  which  even  now 
they  are  continually  charged  at  the  east— the  United  States 
district  attorney  who  had  charge  of  the  case  said,  in  his  plea 
at  the  trial:  "I  have  been  engaged  constantly  during  the  last 
three  months  in  sifting  facts  and  everything  related  to  or  con- 
nected with  the  massacre;  and  I  have  given  the  jury  unanswer- 
able documentary  evidence,  proving  that  the  authorities  of  the 
Mormon  Church  knew  nothing  of  the  butchery  till  after  it  was 
committed.  I  have  had  all  the  assistance — from  the  Mor- 
mons—any official  could  ask  on  earth  in  any  case."*  (See 
report  of  the  trial.)  How  could  any  testimony  be  more 
explicit  or  authoritative?  And  yet  I  could  not  get  these 
words  inserted  in  a  professedly  liberal  religious  paper  at  the 
east  as  an  answer  to  a  charge  already  made  in  its  columns 

*  These  were  the  words  of  Mr.  Sumner  Howard,  U.  S.  Prosecuting 
Attorney  for  Utah,  at  the  trial  of  JotffeJ).  Lee,  held  at  Beaver,  Utah,  Sep- 
tember term,  1876. 


that  the  Mormons  were  guilty  of  the  outrage,  the  exclusion 
being  as  peremptory  and  complete  as  any  facts  bearing  on  the 
anti-slavery  side  in  a  case  before  a  United  States  court  would 
have  been  from  the  most  one-sided  pro-slavery  journal  at  the 
south  before  the  war. 

Capt.  Burton,  in  his  City  of  the  Saints,  published  by 
the  Harpers  in  1862,  a  very  minute  and  impartial  work, 
says,  among  a  multitude  of  other*  things:  "Mormonism  is 
emphatically  the  faith  of  the  poor."  "I  cannot  help  think- 
ing that  morally  and  spiritually  as  well  as  physically  its  pro- 
teges gain  by  their  transfer  from  Europe  to  Utah,"  "In  point 
of  mere  morality,  the  Mormon  community  is  perhaps  purer 
than  any  other  of  equal  numbers."  "The  penalties  against 
chastity,  morality  and  decency  are  exceptionally  severe."  "I 
was  much  pleased  with  their  religious  tolerance.  The  Mor- 
mons are  certainly  the  least  fanatical  of  our  faiths,  owning, 
like  the  Hindus,  that  every  man  should  walk  his  own  way, 
while  claiming  for  themselves  superiority  in  belief  and  prac-, 
tice." 

Among  the  more  recent  testimonies  in  the  same  direction 
is  that  of  James  W.  Barclay,  M.  P.,  an  English  visitor  of  fair 
and  temperate  judgment,  who  says  in  his  article,  "A  New 
View  of  Mormonism,"  published  in  the  January  number  of 
the  National  Quarterly  Review:  "The  Mormon  community  is 
an  enlarged  family  bound  together  by  privilges  and  duties, 
one  principal  duty  being  to  care  for  the  helpless  and  needy. 
At  the  same  time,  every  individual  has  full  freedom  of  action. 
There  is  no  compulsion  on  any  Mormon  beyond  the  public 
opinion  of  his  fellows,  and  none  is  possible.  All  are  equal. 
There  is  no  special  or  privileged  class  or  caste.  The  people 
in  the  fullest  sense  govern  themselves" — statements  especially 
to  be  commended  to  the  attention  of  those  who,  in  default  of 
anything  else,  charge  Mormonism  with  being  a  vast  and  rigid 
hierarchy,  under  which  no  one  is  free.  "I  apprehend  that  the 
animosity  to  Mormonism  is  principally  due  to  the  efforts  of 


10 

the  hosts  of  hungry  office  seekers  who  would  find  lucrative 
posts  in  Utah,  were  the  Mormons  disfranchised;  and  to  the 
missionaries  from  the  eastern  States,*  who  come  to  turn  the 
Mormons  from  the  error  of  their  ways,  and  whose  income 
depends  on  the  strength  of  the  feeling  they  can  excite.  If 
the  Mormons  could  be  disfranchised  in  a  body,  five  hundred 
lucrative  posts  in  Utah  would  be  open  to  Gentile  office 
seekers"— and  does  Free  Religion  want  to  play  into  such 
hands?  "It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  there  are  no  educated 
Mormon  women.  Some  of  them  have  written  with  ability  in 
defense  of  polygamy.  The  young  ladies  appeared  as  free  and 
independent  as  in  other  parts  of  the  United  States."  "The 
men  of  position  correspond  favorably  with  the  same  class  in 
the  eastern  States.  I  was  much  impressed  by  their  ability, 
courtesy  and  general  intelligence.  They  have  a  quiet,  self- 
reliant,  gentlemanly  bearing."  "In  morality,  the  Mormons 
greatly  excel  the  Gentiles  in  their  midst.  The  figures  conclu- 
sively prove  that  the  Mormons  are  a  sober,  law-abiding 
people,  and  singularly  free  from  the  grosser  forms  of  vice, 
whatever  may  be  alleged  to  the  contrary  by  ignorant  or  pre- 
judiced enemies."  "Let  me  say  in  conclusion  that  I  went  to 
Utah  prejudiced  against  the  Mormons;  but  after  seeing  and 
investigating  them  myself,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that, 
apart  from  polygamy  there  is  much  in  the  Mormon  organiza- 
tion to  admire  and  respect,  and  that  the  Mormons  are  the  sub- 
jects of  a  greater  amount  of  misrepresentation  and  unjust 
abuse  than  any  other  community  with  which  I  am 
acquainted." 

Equally  explicit  and  favorable  is  the  testimony  of  Mr. 
Phil  Robinson,  of  the  London  Telegraph,  an  English  traveler 
of  wide  experience  all  over  the  world,  and  of  unquestioned 
reliability,  who  in  1882  spent  three  months  in  Utah.  He  says 
in  his  Sinners  and  Saints,  a  very  readable  book:  "I  have  seen 
and  spoken  to  and  lived  with  Mormon  men  and  women  of 
every  class,  and  never  in  my  life  in  any  Christian  country 


11 

have  I  come  in  contact  with  more  consistent  piety,  sobriety 
and  neighborly  charity.  I  say  this  deliberately.  Without  a 
particle  of  odious  sanctimony,  these  folks  are  in  their  words 
and  actions  as  Christian  as  I  ever  thought  to  see  men  and 
women."  "The  Mormons  are  a  peasant  people,  with  many  of 
the  faults  of  peasant  life,  but  with  many  of  the  best  human 
virtues  as  well."  "The  demeanor  of  the  women  in  Utah,  as 
compared  with,  say  Brighton  or  Washington,  is  modesty 
itself;  and  the  children  are  just  such  healthy,  vigorous,  pretty 
children  as  one  sees  in  the  country  or  by  the  seaside  in  Eng- 
land." "Utah-born  girls,  the  offspring  of  plural  wives,  have 
figures  that  would  make  Paris  envious;  and  they  carry  them- 
selves with  almost  oriental  dignity.  There  is  nothing,  so  far 
as  I  have  seen,  in  the  manners  of  Salt  Lake  City  to  make  me 
suspect  the  existence  of  that  licentiousness  of  which  so  much 
has  been  written;  but  a  great  deal  on  the  contrary  to  convince 
me  of  a  perfectly  exceptional  reserve  and  self-respect.  It  is 
only  a  blockhead  who  could  mistake  the  natural  gayety  of 
the  country  for  anything  other  than  it  is.  I  know,  too,  from 
medical  assurance,  that  Utah  has  the  practical  argument  of 
healthy  nurseries  to  oppose  to  the  theories  of  those  who  attack 
its'  domestic  relations  on  physiological  grounds."  "A  healthier 
and  more  stalwart  community  I  have  never  seen;  while  among 
the  women  I  saw  many  refined  faces,  and  remarked  that 
robust  health  seemed  the  rule."  "Mutual  charity  is  one  of 
the  bonds  of  Mormon  union.  It  is  published  officially  that 
*the  bishops  of  every  ward  are  to  see  that  there  are  no  persons 
going  hungry.'  What  a  contrast  to  turn  from  this  text  of 
universal  charity  to  the  infinite  meanness  of  those  who  can 
write  of  the  whole  community  of  Mormons  as  'the  villainous 
spawn  of  polygamy!' "  "Instead  of  the  Mormons  being  as  a 
class  profane,  they  are  as  a  class  singularly  sober  in  their 
language,  and  indeed  in  this  respect  resemble  the  Quakers." 
"The  Mormons  have  always  struggled  hard  to  prevent  the 
sale  of  liquor;  and  it  is  not  only  the  Mormon  leaders,  but 


12 

the   Mormon   people   that  refuse  to  have  drunkards  among 
them." 

Equally  strong  is  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Robinson  against 
the  charge  so  often  made  by  those  who  are  obliged  to  admit 
their  virtues  in  all  other  respects  that  the  people  are  priest- 
ridden,  the  fact  being  that  each  one  of  them  is  himself  a 
priest,  and  that  it  is  about  as  absurd  to  speak  of  Utah  as 
priest-ridden  as  it  would  be  to  speak  of  the  rest  of  the  country 
as  voter-ridden.  "The  payment  of  tithings  is  as  nearly  volun- 
tary as  the  collection  of  a  revenue  necessary  for  carrying  on 
a  government  can  possibly  be  allowed  to  be."  "If  the  women 
of  Utah  are  slaves,  their  bonds  are  loving  ones  and  dearly  prized. 
They  are  to-day  in  the  free  and  unrestricted  exercise  of  more 
political  and  social  rights  than  are  the  women  of  any  other 
part  of  the  United  States."  "It  is  not  true  that  the  Church 
interferes  with  the  domestic  relations  of  the  people.  When 
I  remember  what  classes  of  people  their  men  and  women  are 
chiefly  drawn  from,  and  the  utter  poverty  in  which  most  of 
them  arrive,  I  cannot  in  sincerity  do  otherwise  than  admire 
and  respect  the  system  which  has  fused  such  unpromising 
material  of  so  many  nationalities  into  one  homogeneous 
whole." 

With  regard  to  the  misrepresentations  of  Mormonisiu,  he 
says:  "Whence  have  the  public  derived  their  opinions  about 
it?  From  anti-Mormons  only.  I  have  ransacked  the  litera- 
ture of  the  subject,  yet  I  really  could  not  tell  any  one  where 
to  go  for  an  impartial  book  about  it  later  in  date  than  Bur- 
ton's Oity  of  the  Saints,  published  in  1862.  There  is  not,  to  my 
knowledge,  a  single  Gentile  work  before  the  public  that  is  not 
utterly  unreliable  from  its  distortion  of  facts.  How  can  any 
one  have  respect  for  the  literature  or  the  men  who,  without 
knowing  anything  of  the  lives  of  Mormons,  stigmatize  them 
as  profane,  adulterous  and  drunken?  These  men  write  of  the 
squalid  poverty  of  the  Mormons,  of  their  obscene  brutality, 
of  their  unceasing  treason  toward  the  United  States,  of  their 


13 

•  blasphemous  repudiation  of  the  Bible,  without  one  particle  of 
information  on  the  subject,  except  such  as  they  gather  from 
the  books  and  writings  of  men  whom  they  ought  to  know  are 
utterly  unworthy  of  credit,  or  from  the  verbal  calumnies  of 
apostates;  and  what  the  evidence  of  apostates  is  worth  history 
has  long  ago  told  us."  "I  am  now  stating  facts;  and  I,  who 
have  lived  among  the  Mormons  and  with  them,  can  assure 
my  readers  that  every  day  of  my  residence  increased  my 
regret  at  the  misrepresentation  these  people  have  suffered" 

Still  stronger  is  the  evidence  derived  from  official  statis- 
tics as  to  their  intelligence  and  virtues.  In  Salt  Lake  City  in 
1881,  the  published  reports  show  that  the  arrests  for  crime 
were  fourteen  times  as  many  among  the  Gentiles  in  proportion 
to  their  numbers  as  among  the  Mormons;  and  taking  the 
Territory  as  a  whole,  the  Gentile  population  furnished  forty- 
six  convicts  in  the  penitentiary  where  the  Mormon  popula- 
tion, number  for  number,  furnished  one!  According  to  the 
United  States  census,  Massachusetts  has  four  times  as  many 
convicts  to  the  same  population  as  Utah,  four  and  a  half 
times  as  many  idiotic  and  insane,  and  nine  times  as  many 
paupers.  Utah,  in  school  attendance,  according  to  the  same 
authority,  is  ahead  of  Massachusetts;  and  with  all  that  has 
been  said  about  the  ignorance  of  its  people  and  its  immense 
foreign  immigration,  its  proportion  of  people  who  cannot 
read  or' write  is  put  down  as  less  than  that  of  New  England. 
And  still  more  striking,  the  women  there,  instead  of  being 
kept  in  ignorance  and  subjection,  are  educated  in  the  same 
studies  and  to  the  same  extent  as  the  boys  and  men,  and  are 
equally  fitted  to  earn  their  own  living  out  in  the  world  and  to 
maintain  an  independent  career — a  very  significant  fact,  in 
view  of  Mr.  Potter's  statement  that  polygamy  "could  gain  no 
foothold  to-day  among  a  people  where  woman  should  be  edu- 
cated as  man's  equal." 

Most  recent  of  all  is  an  article  by  "H.  H."  (Mrs.  Helen 
Hunt  Jackson),  in  the  May  number  of  the  Century,  on  "The 


14 

Women  of  the  Beehive,"  not  at  all  in  sympathy  with  the 
Mormon  religion,  and  very  strongly  against   polygamy,  but 
giving  such  testimony  as  the  following  to  the  virtues   and 
character  of  the  Mormon  people:     "The  more  honest,  indus- 
trious, simple-minded  and  upright  a  man  is,  the  better  Mor- 
mon he  will  be,  if  he  be  a  Mormon  at  all.     How  these  old- 
fashioned  virtues  thrive  on  a  diet  of   fanatical  religion,  the 
prosperous  farms  of  Utah  give  proof.     The  Mormon  gospel  is 
a  gospel  of  labor.     Industry  and  simplicity  of  living  are  its 
strongest   precepts."     "But  it  is  the  woman's  view  of  it,  her 
position  and  belief  with  regard  to  it,  which  are  most  misrep- 
resented and  misunderstood  by  the  world."     "A  true  under- 
standing  of    the   conscientious,   religious   Mormon   woman's 
position  and  belief  would  work  a  revolution  in  the  general 
sentiment  of  the  outside  world,  toward  her."     "There  never 
was  a  class  or  sect  of  women  since  the  world  began  who  have 
endured  for  religion's  sake  a  tithe  of  what  has  been  and  is 
and  forever  must  be  endured  by  the  women  of  the  Mormon 
Church.     It  has  become  customary  to  hold  them  as  disreput- 
able women,  light  and  loose,  unfit  to  associate  with  the  vir- 
tuous, undeserving  of    esteem.      Never  was  a  greater  injustice 
committed."     "The   passage   of  the   Edmunds  anti-polygamy 
bill,  disfranchising  all  perions  living  in  polygamy  and  mak- 
ing the  practice  of  it  a  penitentiary  offence,  has,  so  far  as  can 
at  present  be  judged,  only  kindled  new  flames  of  self-sacrifice 
in  the  hearts  of  Mormon  women."     "This  sort  of  spirit  in  the 
Mormon  women  was  not  reckoned  on,  probably,  by  those  who 
thought  polygamy  could  be  greatly  affected  by  legislation." 
"It  is  entirely  within  the  power  of  the  Mormon  women  to 
turn  any  anti- poly  gamy  bill  into  a  farce.     There  would  not 
be   penitentiaries   enough   to   hold  them,  nor  funds  to  feed 
them  at  the  United  States  expense;  and  it  is  not  easy  to  see 
what  further  device  the  baffled  authorities  would  employ." 
"But  true  signs  of  the  times  no  wise  leaders  will  disregard. 
The  Mormon  people  as  a  people  are  too  upright,  industrious 


15 

and  moral,  have  worked  too  long  and  well,  and  achieved  too 
splendid  a  success,  to  have  their  future  again  imperiled  by 
being  brought  into  active  hostility  with  the  majority  of  their 
fellow-countrymen." 

Now,  what  community  on  earth  can  present  higher^ 
stronger  or  more  conclusive  testimony  as  to  its  virtues  and 
intelligence  than  this?  Ought  it  not  to  outweigh  any  amount 
of  statements  made  by  narrow,  bitter,  prejudiced,  partisan 
leaders  at  home  and  abroad?  It  covers  almost  every  possible 
point  of  good  citizenship — those  of  education,  patriotism, 
liberty,  domestic  life,  morals  and  religion,  as  well  as  of  indus- 
try, thrift  and  material  well-being.  And,  in  view  of  it, 
wras  there  ever  a  greater  outrage  attempted  against  a  people  on 
earth,  even  under  the  most  tyrannical  government,  than  the 
Edmunds  bill,  already  passed,  and  the  Hoar  bill,  now  before 
Congress?  Compare  the  state  of  things  in  Utah  revealed  by 
these  accounts  with  what  exists  in  our  monogamous  com- 
munities at  the  east.  Why,  I  live  in  a  New  England  State 
which  in  every  one  of  these  respects  is  inferior  to  Utah— a 
State  where  actually  a  larger  proportion  of  the  Protestant 
men  have  more  than  one  wife  living  than  in  Utah,  the  only 
difference  being  that  there  they  are  all  supported  by  their 
husbands  and  made  a  part  of  the  home,  while  here  the  first 
ones  have  been  driven  out  into  the  world  to  shift  for  them- 
selves. 

What  does  this  difference  show?  Not  indeed,  as  Mr. 
Potter  says,  that  polygamy  in  itself  or  for  the  country  at  large 
is  better  than  monogamy — for  in  itself  and  elsewhere  it  is  not 
regarded  as  a  religious  principle,  a  view  which  makes  all  the 
difference  in  the  world — but  only  that,  for  Utah  and  in  con- 
nection with  the  Mormon  religion,  it  is  producing  no  such 
evils  as  to  call  for  the  interference  of  the  general  government. 
It  may  be  "a  crime,"  but  it  is  a  crime  legally,  and  not  morally 
— a  crime  only  as  the  breaking  of  the  Loid's  day  is  one  in 
Connecticut,  and  not  as  theft,  slavery  and  murder  are  every- 


16 

where.  Marriage,  in  itself,  whether  monogamic  or  polygamous, 
is  intrinsically  without  moral  character.  It  is  simply  a  social 
regulation :  is,  like  Sunday,  something  which  is  made  for  man 
and  not  man  for  that.  It  is  a  means  to  an  end — a  means  to 
promote  purity,  domestic  happiness,  the  proper  care  of  chil- 
dren, the  elevation  of  the  sexes,  and  the  general  well-being  of 
society.  And  which  form  of  it  is  best,  or  whether  any  form  of 
it  is  best,  and  how  and  by  whom  it  shall  be  performed,  is  to 
be  determined  by  its  results  in  each  community;  for  it  is  a 
community  interest,  and  of  course  by  the  will  of  each  com- 
munity. I  believe  in  monogamy  as  our  proper  form  of  it,  be- 
cause it  is  our  free  choice,  meets  our  hearts'  need,  and,  in  spite 
of  some  great  evils  rising  out  of  it,  has  proved  itself  best  adapted 
to  promote  oujj  social  welfare.  Why  should  not  the  Mormons 
be  allowed  in  the  same  way  and  on  the  same  grounds  to 
decide  what  form  of  it  is  best  for  them,  exposed  only  to  such 
moral  influences  from  without  as  all  communities  give  each 
other,  the  test  being  simply  its  results  in  their  own  case?  To 
be  sure,  polygamy  in  the  past  and  in  other  communities  "has 
been  connected  with  a  low  state  of  civilization,"  has  served, 
as  Mr.  Potter  says,  "to  pander  to  and  strengthen  man's  animal 
passions,  nd  to  keep  woman  in  a  state  of  subjection;"  and, 
theoretically,  it  seems  to  me,  as  it  does  to  him,  that  it  must 
now  inevitably  do  the  same  wherever  it  is.  But  the  question 
is  not  what  it  did  in  a  past  age  and  in  other  communities,  or 
what  it  ought  theoretically  to  do  everywhere  now,  but  what  it 
does  to-day  actually  in  Utah.  Government  is  concerned  not 
in  upholding  or  putting  down  some  special  institution  on 
its  own'  account  and  in  accordance  with  some  ideal  of 
society,  but  in  promoting  and  guarding  the  well-being  of  its 
citizens  under  such  ones  as  they  themselves  have  chosen,  it 
being  especially  the  fundamental  principle  of  our  own  gov- 
ernment that  each  community  large  enough  to  become  a 
State  shall  regulate  all  its  own  domestic  affairs.  And,  if  Utah 
shows  practically — and  here  is  where  the  force  of  the  testi- 


17 

inony  quoted  comes  in — that  polygamy,  guarded  and  pene- 
trated by  the  Mormon  religion,  produces  as  much  happiness, 
intelligence,  morality,  freedom,  and  of  all  the  virtues,  pros- 
perities and  satisfactions  of  life  for  its  citizens  as  monogamy 
does  in  other  communities  for  theirs,  shows  especially  that 
woman,  instead  of  being  "in  a  state  of  subjugation  to  man," 
is  freer,  better  paid,  and  has  more  civil  rights  than  elsewhere, 
then  surely  Free  Religion  and  Christianity  both,  with  their 
emphasis  on  the  spirit  rather  than  on  the  letter,  ought  to  be 
the  last  ones  to  advocate,  for  the  mere  sake  of  upholding  an 
institution,  that  monogamy  with  its  attendant  evils,  now 
shown  by  statistics  to  be  so  much  greater  among  the  Gentiles 
there,  should  be  arbitrarily  thrust  on  it  by  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment. 

A  while  ago,  at  a  woman's  suffrage  convention  here  in 
New  England,  I  heard  a  Baptist  brother  tell  the  ladies  that 
they  ought  to  be  willing  to  fail  of  getting  their  rights  on  Bible 
grounds  rather  than  to  succeed  in  securing  them  by  any 
arguments  outside  of  and  contrary  to  Scrip 'ure.  And  once 
an  orthodox  believer,  disputing  with  his  Unitarian  neighbor 
about  the  value  of  their  two  systems,  on  being  hard  pressed 
with  facts,  shouted  at  last  in  desperation:  "Well,  I  don't  care! 
I  had  rather  be  damned  in  orthodoxy  than  saved  by  Unitari- 
anism."  It  is  a  loyality  to  the  means  rather  than  to  the  end, 
which  sounds  ludicrous  in  their  cases;  and  yet  what  is  much 
of  the  discussion  about  enforcing  monogamy  on  Utah,  what- 
ever virtues  polygamy  may  show,  but  a  use  of  the  same  prin- 
ciple? What  but  a  saying  it  is  better  to  have  society  fail  of 
its  great  ends  on  Gentile  grounds  than  to  succeed  on  those  of 
Mormonism;  better  to  have  it  damned  with  a  monogamy 
which  by  actual  count  furnishes  ninety  eight  per  cent,  of  the 
criminals  in  its  penitentiary  rather  than  saved  by  a  polygarn}' 
which  furnishes  only  two! 


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